


Star Burn

by enkiduu



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-08
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-04-12 14:00:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19133476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enkiduu/pseuds/enkiduu
Summary: His voice is breathy like he has swallowed fire, his brown eyes bright like supernovae, his grin charming like he has power over the stars, and Steve thinks this boy must have never been told no in his life before.(In which they meet in a bar and find out who the other is afterwards.)





	Star Burn

They meet in a seedy bar, even though they really shouldn’t. 

Steve comes here on a whim, because he’s tired of working for an agency he can’t bring himself to leave. He doesn’t have a lot of downtime between missions, and he likes to take a good break. 

At this bar without a name, he can forget his own because nobody else knows it either. 

Names mean nothing here. He can actually be himself. 

Steve feels the hungry gaze on him first, and he doesn’t have to wait long for the person. He is used to being watched, and this is expected. People come here for a very specific thing. 

This is where people go when they search for pleasure in the long nights, filling them up so they might delay the coming dawn by another gasped breath.

This is where people go when they’re looking for nothing.

Steve looks at the man who sits down beside him at the bar—no, at the boy. He’s young, can’t be much over twenty, even if he holds himself with more confidence than most people Steve has met. 

He grins at Steve, flirtatious. Looks at him from under his eyelashes and says, “You waiting for something, sitting here all alone?” 

His voice is breathy like he has swallowed fire, his brown eyes bright like supernovae, his grin charming like he has power over the stars, and Steve thinks this boy must have never been told no in his life before. 

“Someone,” Steve says, and smiles back. Charm isn’t something he uses much at work, not like this. He is supposed to keep everyone’s chin up and intimate relations are riskier than he would like. Here, it’s safe. Steve doesn’t expect anything more than just a night. “Maybe I’ve waited long enough. What are you looking for?”

The boy’s eyes sharpen, narrow slightly. Maybe he doesn’t know. Maybe he does. Steve wonders if that’s worse than knowing. “I guess we’ll find out,” he says after a beat of silence, and then the seriousness dissipates like it was an illusion in the first place. 

Steve doesn’t think the word boy is a fair assessment anymore, even though it is true. War is what changed Steve a long time ago (every single night), and while he can easily tell that this person here isn’t a soldier, war is far from the only battle people fight. 

“Wait any longer and you’ll be needing a cane,” the boy says, a test.

“There won’t be a cane unless you ask for one.” Those words elicit the licking of lips, widening of eyes, quickening of breath. “Do I really seem that old to you? I’m only thirty. Will that be a problem?” 

“Nope,” is the breathy reply. The boy laughs and shifts closer. “Not a problem. Very much not a problem.” 

His hand trails towards Steve’s arm and he slips on a seductive smirk with ease, like he’s had pleasure and sin branded on him for longer than he’s lived, like it’s all he lives for. 

Steve doesn’t pin him down at the touch, even though he has been trained to do much, much more than that in the blink of an eye. Distractedly, he thinks this boy would probably like that. 

Hedonism isn’t something Steve is friends with, because it’s the sort of addiction that oxidizes even the strongest of iron into rust. 

And that’s fine, because Steve’s not here to make friends. 

If pleasure and sin are seared into this stranger, then if Steve touches him, perhaps he can borrow the flames, let himself burn for a while and forget about the cold. He puts a hand on the other’s. “Wait,” Steve says. 

The boy blinks at him blankly. Then says, “Oh. I’m legal.” It sounds more like an afterthought than anything, something that he doesn’t realize people care about. 

“You’re sure,” Steve says, feeling concerned for this stranger. It’s not that he doesn’t believe him, or that he’s worried about breaking the law. His tone just makes Steve worried. 

Eyebrows go up. “I think I know my own age, thank you very much,” he says, and buried underneath the open amusement of his voice is slight annoyance. 

That’s a good reminder. 

Steve wonders how many people he has approached before. Steve shouldn’t judge, not here. He’s done enough of that, and even if he cares, his judgment doesn’t matter in the end, anyway. 

And if he doesn’t start anything with feelings, it’s not on him. 

Steve’s not here to save anyone. Doesn’t think he could from the way this stranger looks at him with embers in the glow of his gaze, with coal in the dark sleeplessness of his eyes, the restless way he carries himself, never still enough for the world around him to catch and hold him down.

Steve thinks he would like to hold him down. He thinks he would let Steve do that.

With the way he runs his hand down Steve’s arm, Steve thinks that he would let Steve do a lot more than that. Heat unfurls inside him.

“Tony,” the stranger says, making his name sound less like an offer and more like permission. Tony shakes his head before Steve can speak. “No need. See, even though I could moan your name when your dick is up my ass, we’re not here for that. Am I wrong,” he drawls, in what is probably the most innocent voice and smile he can muster. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

Steve realizes that he is unbearably turned on, realizes that Tony knows that too with the cheeky grin that surfaces. That little shit. He’s torn between amusement and something stronger and more immediate. 

“Good luck saying anything when I’m inside you, then, Tony,” Steve says, his knee bumping Tony’s. He can practically feel Tony shiver, and then he feels Tony, because Tony leans in for a kiss. 

Tony tastes like alcohol that Steve can’t afford, which isn’t surprising because he wears a shirt that he shouldn’t to places like this, a shirt that is too expensive and soft, Steve finds, when he runs his fingers under it to ghost over Tony’s stomach. Tony swipes his tongue over the bottom on Steve’s lip, opening his mouth. He moans into the kiss and fists Steve’s jacket to pull him closer. 

“A more—private, show, Tony,” Steve says, eyes darting to the side, and notes in surprise when the bartender simply carries on with her night, not even looking up, seemingly without qualms about the kissing. 

“Believe me,” Tony says, laughter in his voice, “it’s fine.” He tugs at Steve again, and this time, Steve lets him. 

Tony is nowhere near inexperienced, but he clearly doesn’t know a kiss that is something other than rough. Tony kisses, hungry and fierce like he’s been paying for things he never wanted his entire life, and he’s sick of it because alcohol is never enough to make him forget that. It feels to Steve like Tony just wants to take something without the pricetag attached for once. 

Steve recognizes that sort of frustration and desire because, here, Steve isn’t bought, isn’t property of any government, isn’t hero (casualty) of any war. 

So this is just how Steve likes it, because Steve is tired of being kind and gentle all the time like he’s supposed to be. 

Neither of them are supposed to be here, to be this. 

But this is the only way they could ever meet as themselves, because desire is a side he thinks that they could only ever show to strangers in places like this, and not to friends, and even less to enemies. 

Tony doesn’t look like he has many friends. Steve tastes loneliness on his lips, past the fire that flares and teeth that graze as if he expects everyone to be his enemy, to be convinced, conquered. 

Solitude is something Steve is intimately acquainted with, because he has learned to welcome it so he isn’t surprised when it engulfs him. 

So here they are.

  



End file.
